


Not the Same

by SapphoIsBurning



Category: Combat Zone Wrestling, Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Bad Spanish, Drug Use, Hallucinations, I hope the Spanish is at least authentically bad, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Masks, Panic Attacks, Sami Zayn is El Generico, Seth and Kevin are in it but mostly because it would be implausible without them, They have small roles, WWE NXT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 12:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12911883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning
Summary: Jon Moxley has a bad trip, and El Generico does the one thing he thought he'd never do to comfort him.Later, Dean Ambrose welcomes Sami Zayn to the WWE.These two stories are related.





	Not the Same

**Author's Note:**

> Title and story inspiration from the song "Not the Same" by Ben Folds.

_CZW, 2008_

"Hey Generico. Te gusta la ganja?" Jon asked, snickering.

They were backstage at CZW, sweaty, edgy, and for Jon's part, less bloody than usual. He had done a quick run-in during someone else's match and gotten a few chair shots in, then disappeared through the curtain. He was still in his trunks, an actual change of clothes draped over his shoulder that he just hadn't gotten the chance to put on.

"No," Generico said.

"Gaaaanja," Jon said, drawing the syllables out. "El weed. Quieres party?"

"No ganja," Generico replied. "Um, el straight edge."

"Really?" Jon asked. He looked at Generico's skinny chest, smeared with what had once said "Buy my merch" but now was just a red and black blur. He stepped closer.

"Si," Generico said.

"Shame you never take off that mask," Jon said.

"Si." Generico moved but found himself backed up against a bank of lockers.

Jon's nostrils flared. "You wanna do something for me?" He asked.

Generico took a breath and was overwhelmed by the sensation of Jon Moxley, blood sweat and grime, staring him down, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"Si," Generico said, smiling out of the corner of his mouth.

"Wanna be my designated driver?" Jon asked.

"Oh," Generico said, deflating a little. "Um, si."

"Great!" Jon said. "Danny's parties are always the greatest. You'll see. Si. Hah!" He slapped Generico on the arm and pulled his shirt on over his head. "Meet me out back in five."

***

Scotty Vortekz was perched upside down on a flimsy paisley couch doing a keg stand, beer droplets making streaks through the dirt on his skin. Drake Younger was wearing a lampshade on his head. And El Generico was standing in a corner listening to a girl he had just met tell him a long list of every different kind of heavy metal there was. His mask was itchy but it was the only thing protecting him from longer conversations, or harder ones. But it was getting really late and he was desperately tired.

"Don't even get me started on grindcore," she said.

"Si," Generico replied, nodding seriously.

"You're such a good listener." She took a sip out of a red plastic cup. "Where did your friend go? Donde está tu amigo," she added, trying to be helpful.

"Shit," Generico said. "Mi amigo." He held up one finger to the girl and patted her arm, making his exit.

"Drake," he whispered. "Drake, where's Moxley."

Drake Younger knew everybody's secrets.

"He bought a baggie full of something from Sweaty Lou and then went upstairs," Drake said. "Shit, I meant to go check on him but then I did a couple of bong rips and..." Drake shook his head. "Go up but knock first, I think he's in the empty bedroom on the right."

Generico nodded.

He first made his way to the kitchen and filled a cup with water. He peeled the bottom of his mask up to drink a little of it and then straightened it, covering his beard. He didn't have to wait or check on anyone. Jon was probably planning to pass out here anyway. Generico could probably bail.

But he wasn't that kind of guy. And he didn't trust whatever Sweaty Lou was dealing.

He went up the rickety stairs, avoiding a couple of bros with an arm slung around each other deep in conversation or denial or something.

"Jon?" He said, knocking gently on the door Drake had mentioned.

"Help," someone said weakly.

Generico slammed into the door with his shoulder, forgetting to turn the knob. It made a loud noise and there was a startled shout from inside.

"Sorry!" Generico shouted. He turned the knob and stuck his head in. The room was lit by a bare, yellowy light bulb and Jon was lying face up on a bare mattress, eyes closed.

"Help," he said again. "Dad's back."

Generico tilted his head, stepping into the room and with a tangle of his own limbs, quietly pulling the door closed. "Que?" He said.

"Gotta get mom out but she won't go," Jon moaned. He pulled his knees up to his stomach and rolled over, curling into the fetal position.

Nothing about this struck Generico as good. "Amigo," He said. "Hey, Jon, we're in Philadelphia. We're at Danny's house. Where's your phone?"

"No," Jon moaned. He opened his eyes and startled at Generico. "No, no, no." He clutched at his face. "Don't put the mask on me. Oh god." He was shaking and his pupils were completely dilated.

"Jon, what did you take." Generico took a step closer but Jon cringed and whimpered.

"No masks," he said. "Dad, I'm sorry, don't put my head in the bag."

Generico shook his head, partially to clear it and partially out of disbelief in the cruelty of humanity.

"Look, I'm taking it off," he said. He didn't really believe his own fingers as they flew to the laces at the back of his head, but they worked quickly apart from his own will.

“No,” Jon moaned, rocking back and forth and clawing at himself. “No masks. I can’t go back.”

“I’m…” Generico started to say. “I’m not.” He pulled the mask off and felt naked and exposed, even though Jon didn’t seem like he was present to see him. “Everything’s okay, Jon.” He said it as smoothly and calmly as he could but all he heard come out of himself was hollow. He knelt next to the mattress and reached out a hand.

He touched Jon's wrist without provoking a reaction. He left his hand there, grasping the sweaty appendage.

"It's okay, I have panic attacks too sometimes," Generico said as soothingly as possible, rubbing his thumb against Jon's wrist, his pulse point, feeling it flutter. He wanted to say something about Sweaty Lou's product but he refrained.

Jon took his hands away from his eyes. He opened them. He squinted, then rubbed them, still shaky, pulling out of the other man's grasp. He rolled to his knees, staring back.

"This is all wrong," Jon said.

"I'll say," Generico said, grabbing his mask off the floor and turning it over in his hands.

"Where am I? Why are there so many fucking lights?" He sniffled and shook his head, like if he shook himself hard enough it would clear out whatever poison was in his system, whatever bad blood, muddy water.

"Jon, you're really fucked up," Generico said. "We're at Danny's house. I don't even know Danny. I don't want to pass out in a rat hole punk house in Philly. I want to pass out in a rat hole hotel."

Jon squinted. "You're beautiful," he said.

Generico's eyes snapped open wide. "What," he said flatly.

"Are you an angel?" Jon asked. He started to laugh, hands twirling in the air. "You're so goddamn beautiful, you have to hide it under that mask, you're too bright for them to look at you." Now he was crying again. "You're beautiful."

"I think you're going to have to sleep this one off," Generico said. "You need to drink some water. Here." He picked up the Solo cup of water he came in with and thrust it at Jon, who grabbed it with weird freaked out reverence.

"Will you bless me," he said.

"Stop it," Generico said. "I'll put the mask on again."

Jon's eyes went wide and he kept them on Generico as he drank some of the water, then set the empty cup down at the edge of the mattress.

"I hate it here," Jon said.

"Okay," Generico said. He squatted on his heels. Jon fell back down on the mattress.

"I hate having a body."

"If you didn't have a body, you couldn't wrestle," Generico said, wondering why he was trying to reason with a guy on a bad trip.

"Wrestling makes me feel like I can leave it behind," Jon sighed. "I feel like I'm flying. But you really fly, don't you?"

"Yeah." Generico smiled. "I like that part."

"Who are you?" Jon asked. "What makes you shine like that?"

"I don't shine," Generico said. "That's the light bulb."

"You got a glow," Jon insisted. "No, I can always see it, that's how I know it's you. You took your mask off but I know it's you, brighter than the sun, some people are just like that. Always been like that."

Generico looked at his cracked phone screen. "Fuck, it's like two in the morning, Jon."

"Time isn't real, amigo," Jon said, spreading his arms out on the mattress. "Stay a little longer."

"I don't even know you," Generico said. "You don't know me."

"What's to know?" Jon asked. "I'm bein’ visited by an unmasked angel and he says he doesn't know me. Can't you see right through me? Isn't that why you're here?"

Generico slumped against the peeling wallpaper where he sat. "I was worried. I drove you. From the arena."

"You like me," Jon said.

"No one likes you," Generico lied.

"I'm dying," Jon said.

"Not tonight you're not," Generico said. He got up.

"Don't leave."

"I won't," Generico said. He lay down on the mattress next to Jon. "I can't leave you like this. It's not right. You deserve better."

"You like me," Jon smiled, rolling over, curling back in on himself, burying his face in the dirty black sleeve of his hoodie.

Generico sighed and lay next to him, keeping vigil, like a guardian angel. A guardian something.

He stayed with Jon until it got light out, and sun started streaming into the room through cracks in the Venetian blinds. Then he picked up his mask and slipped it on, tightening the laces.

"Good night," he said to Jon. "Or good morning."

But Jon was dead to the world, at least for the moment, so he did not respond.

_WWE, 2012_

It was Tables, Ladders, and Chairs, and Sami, Kevin, and Jimmy sat in the nosebleed section of Madison Square Garden watching their friend Seth beat and get beaten as a member of the Shield.

But this Dean Ambrose guy was the one Sami couldn't take his eyes off of.

Dean Ambrose, who changed his name from Jon Moxley a few years earlier when he got a contract with FCW. Still seemed like Jon: the lithe strength and feral intensity Sami remembered from long ago days when they crossed paths. Sami thought of that last time. He had never been back to CZW after that, and Jon was onward and upward. No time to think about seeing under a Canadian luchador's mask, Sami thought.

Seth, a friend from many years of indie bullshit under a yet different name, had gotten them tickets to the show, but the only seats available were scraping the rafters.

It was worth it anyway, to see their friend make it to the big time.

Sami gulped as Dean slammed Ryback through a table.

The crowd roared.

He slunk down inside his hoodie and wished he was wearing his mask. It was easier to be Generico. Generico was a cop out. His bad Spanish was embarrassing. But the mask almost felt like his real face by now. Almost.

Jimmy offered him some candy, smuggled in under a coat because what wrestler could afford to buy food at an arena? Sami waved it away.

The people in the ring below looked like tiny ants, but the Jumbotron made them feel less like a flea circus. It was real. Wrestling was, deep down, pretty fucking real.

The Shield won and the whole world went wild.

***

Indie cred alone would not get you backstage at a WWE pay per view--indie cred plus backstage passes from someone on the card, maybe. But Seth hadn't quite figured all that out yet, so they were stuck in the underground parking garage, waiting outside a door to see their friends before they all blew away in different directions, once again. Generico had a bunch of California bookings and they were looking like the last of something. He didn't know how to tell anyone. He was thinking of signing with WWE.

Seth, Roman Reigns, and Dean emerged from a guarded door. Seth immediately hugged all of them, slapping their backs and rocking and laughing. Roman gave everyone a polite bro-nod and went to grab the car.

Dean came out last, after they had all gotten a minute to catch up.

Sami saw he was reserved. He frowned and gave Jimmy and Kev fistbumps, stopping at Sami.

"I know you," Dean said.

"No you don't," Sami said.

"You're..." Dean trailed off. He stared intently into Sami's eyes, taking a step closer, rubbing his collarbone thoughtfully.

His eyes widened suddenly. "You're the sun," he said.

"I have to go," Sami said, aching to reach out but action choked off by fear.

"Oh," Dean said.

"Dean, come on," Seth said, jerking a thumb at Roman waiting in the rental car.

"Bye," Sami said, waving and swinging his arms, not knowing what to do with his hands after.

"Adios," Dean said. He opened the back door of the SUV and jumped in. The car drove away.

"What was that about?" Jimmy asked, nudging Sami in the arm.

"Nothing," Sami said. "I'm ready to go."

_NXT, 2013_

Sami waited for his defeated opponent, and old indie rival who didn't recognize him at all without the mask, to shower and change before he went to the locker room. It gave him a lot of time for folks backstage to congratulate him on his debut, his first matches in WWE, his bright future here at NXT, a young upstart that no one knew anything about.

It had taken a lot of practice to get used to wrestling without his mask, but Sami had done it. As far as anyone needed to know, El Generico was retired and running an orphanage in Tijuana. A fresh start to let people see his real face and his real red hair and his actual self. No hiding behind bad Spanish anymore. Instead, his name was written on his tights in Arabic for the whole world to see.

And so far, the crowds seemed to like him.

It was a start, a start that paid him enough money to get his broken molar fixed for real and maybe even to buy a new car this year.

"Sami Zayn, Sami Zayn." Dusty Rhodes came around a blind corner and nearly bumped right into him. "There! Sami Zayn, I got somebody who wants to meetcha."

"What? Oh, okay, I--"

But Sami was cut short by Dean Ambrose coming out from around a corner.

"Oh, um. Hi?" Sami said, surprised into stammering silence by Dean's presence, taking in his strawberry blonde hair slicked back and the United States Championship slung over his shoulder. He was wearing a black tee shirt and jeans and boots.

"Sami Zayn, eh?" Dean said. "I coulda sworn you used to go by..."

"I'll leave you two kids alone," Dusty said, cutting him off. He patted Dean on the cheek and wandered away.

"Do you want to talk in there?" Sami asked, gesturing with his head toward the locker room door.

Dean bit his cheek and grinned. "Sure."

Sami pushed the door to the locker room open and went to where his gym bag was stashed, unzipping it and sorting through for the clean shirt he was sure was in there somewhere. He felt even more shirtless with Dean following on his heels.

"You looked great tonight," Dean said.

"Not like you've been doing bad yourself," Sami said, sorting a few pairs of underwear out and then shoving back into the bag before Dean could see.

"You were watching?"

Sami turned around. "Of course I did," Sami said. "Wish I could have been there. We all watched it at Tyler's house. Someday, right?"

"Life comes at you fast," Dean said, raising an eyebrow.

"Are you really carrying that thing around everywhere?" Sami asked, gesturing at the title.

"Sure as shit I am," Dean said. "Wouldn't you?"

"I hope I get to find out," Sami said with a little determination and a little fear.

"You will,” Dean said. He paused. “They don't even know who they're facing," he said conspiratorially. "They have no idea."

"Guess you're in charge of a big secret then," Sami said, rubbing the back of his neck. He pulled a tee shirt out of his bag but hesitated before putting it on. Something about this whole scene was familiar.

"Yeah," Dean said, touching his hair. He suddenly didn't seem so much like a member of the Shield, some terrifying violent force. He looked young and scared. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Sami waited.

"I never got to thank you," Dean said.

"What?" Sami asked.

"I have a vague memory of El Generico doing a favor for a friend of mine when he was having a real bad night." Dean stepped closer.

"Um, I think Generico would say it was no big deal," Sami gulped. He could smell the leather and metal of the championship and also something else, something masculine and spicy. It had been a long time.

"Am I the only one you ever let under your mask?" Dean asked.

Sami shook his head no. “But...you were the first,” he said.

Dean's eyes lit up. "Wish it had been under better circumstances," he said. "I wasn't real fit to make the most of the situation."

"Are you now?" Sami asked.

"Are you?" Dean shot back.

Sami dropped what he had been wringing in his hands and surged forward, grabbing Dean by the front of his shirt. Their lips met, Dean's a little chapped but sweet, and the faint taste of a watermelon Jolly Rancher made Sami laugh. They pulled back.

"Worth the wait?" Dean asked.

Sami pushed his tongue into his cheek. "Too soon to tell."

Dean grabbed Sami's hand and pressed a crumpled piece of paper into it. "Call me later?" He said, eyes alight.

"Yeah," Sami said. And he smiled, and it was as bright as the sun.

 


End file.
